Page 90 of Don't Game Me
She shook her head.
He cut a piece for himself, but before he put it in his mouth said, “Let’s all agree to not tell our folks the whole story about Becca getting shot. And agree not to entirely trust Quan.” He waved his fork at Becca. “I trust your instincts, sis. You read people better than me and Noah most of the time.”
“Won’t tell the ’rents.” Noah took a sip of coffee and stared at Becca, contemplative. He met Jake’s gaze for a moment.
Uh-oh. Was she and Jake being involved about to come up? Part of her wanted it, and part of her dreaded it.
Noah said, “Now that you’re a free agent and proven to be good at what you do, you’re going to help us. We need to make our virtual reality goggles work for movies. In theater for the public. And you need a job. We also need to keep an eye on you.”
“What? You want me to work for NJ Legacy?” Unexpected. “I just hacked into your mainframe. Aren’t you a bit worried about my credibility?” Her gaze slid to Jake, but he’d slipped to the back of the room behind Michael where she couldn’t see him well.
“Nope. Makes you beholden to me…us,” Noah said. “You do that again, and I’ll tell Mom.”
“She scares you more than me,” Becca shot back.
Noah’s eyebrows rose.
She dropped her gaze. “Don’t tell her.”
Noah said, “My security guy was pissed, but I also think he wants to propose marriage to you over the badassery of the whole thing. We’re really in a bind, Becca. I need this done in a few weeks.”
“You’re taking the goggles into movie theaters?” She craned around Michael to look at Jake, who nodded.
“Hundreds, maybe thousands of cinemas will need to be outfitted. That requires different processing for films. Different integration. Technology to assure the goggles don’t walk out of the cinemas, which means they can only work in theaters with no possibility to retrofit them to a home system.” Jake glanced to Noah. “The team assigned to work on this has topnotch talent but is filled with egos. The person who was in charge quit. He didn’t produce much in three months. I think you can do this.”
Her cheeks heated from the compliment, but she didn’t know if she could get a team who’d consider her a green intern to function. “After everything, I’m thinking I should walk away from programming, video games, all of it.”
“Why? That’d be letting them win.” Jake paced forward, out of the shadows, to lean onto the counter, which brought his upper chest into tight relief against his T-shirt.
“You sure, Noah? You were pretty upset yesterday at me,” she asked.
“Keep your enemies close and all that jazz.” Noah hid his gaze in his cup of coffee.
“What’s in it for me other than you keeping an eye on me?”
“I’ll have our lawyer draft the contract to hire you on a temp basis. Salary?” Jake grabbed his sticky pad off the counter and wrote down a number. He slid it across to her.
“Is that for the whole job? Until completion?” She stared at the five-figure number, her mind unable to wrap itself around the considerable amount.
“No, that’s per month, broken into bi-weekly payments.”
Holy crap. That was more money than she’d ever imagined she’d get at any job. Her internship barely paid two thousand a month after taxes. “Are you giving me some bogus big number because I’m Noah’s sister?”
Jake met Noah’s gaze. “This is pretty standard for someone to lead the team.”
Michael looked over her shoulder at the sticky note. He whispered, but not low enough the others couldn’t hear, “Push back, play hard to get. They’re in a tight spot and impressed as hell by your skills. I heard Noah shit his pants yesterday since the team is sucking ass on the movie integration project.”
“I haven’t shit my pants since I was like two, maybe younger.” Noah punched Michael in the upper arm.
“Oww.” Michael massaged the muscle.
She drew in a shaky breath and gazed at Jake. “I’m not sure that’s enough salary for this kind of stress.”
His lips compressed against a grin, no longer serious Jake. He waved Noah over, and they whispered for a few seconds before Jake announced, “We’re willing to offer a thirty thousand bonus upon completion on the condition you start now. As in today.”
Another thirty? Wowzers. “Okay. But—”
Noah held up his hands. “No buts. That’s an insane amount of money to pay someone who attempted espionage.”
